One Death Does Not Undo the Killing

When I see how we celebrate a death of a person assassinated in cold blood, in order to avenge or justify other deaths, the world in which I dream of living seems further away.

More than relief, I feel sadness; more than a sensation of justice, deception. More than feeling that the memory of my brother was honored and that his death, in the attack on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, nearly 10 years ago, has some meaning, I feel that it was in vain, and that every day the world becomes more cruel, violent and insecure. If this is the result of so much loss, it hurts even more that he is not with us today, watching his marvelous children, who were deprived of his love on earth, grow up.

The assassination of Osama bin Laden at the hands of the North American army on Sunday, May 1, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, will never take away the pain of the relatives of the nearly 3,000 people who died in that attack. A death will never repair the pain caused by another death.

As the close relative of one victim of that terrible episode that shook the entire world, I would like to share my belief that only love and the memory of the great person who was my brother have allowed, at long last, the growth of a feeling of justice in my heart and in the hearts of every person who knew him and loved him.

Grieving through my brother’s death, through the enormous loss it signified for his wife and three children, for his parents, siblings and friends, and remembering him with fondness and respect has made his death clear and given us meaning in our lives. The search for vengeance and assassination of other individuals, whether or not they were responsible for the attack, never was a possibility in the attempt to placate so much pain.

This being said, I do not want to give up the search for real justice, only the sort of justice that generates more deaths, more wars and more bloodshed by innocent people, which fills the world with more hate, more resentment and more pain.

One can find justice through the “leadership of influence,” like that of John Paul II, after the demolition of the USSR, demonstrating the uselessness of wars, arms and violence and how much more efficient moral authority is in the achievement of objectives. Genuine authority is leadership by influence and never through coercion and violence, which are always destructive.

How much more humane it would have been if the U.S. had captured and arrested Osama bin Laden alive, taken him before an international tribunal — for he claimed attacks, not only in America, but also in Spain, England and other countries — and judged him according to international law. A trial that all who wished to could attend, with their accusations and corresponding charges, and where a sentence could be given that the entire world could see and understand, leaving no doubts and eternal suspicions, like those awakened by these operations.

I am far from being a specialist in international politics and terrorism. But I see that our Western world presents this as a war against terrorism. My brother died in this war by virtue of being completely innocent, as did hundreds of others, and I can assure you that the assassination of the head of al-Qaida produced neither a feeling of justice, nor of relief, nor of pain.

On the contrary: It did no more than open old wounds and make me see, once again, how the world returns to participate in yet another war, in the name of a supposed “peace” that each day, I fear to say, feels further away.